Queen Geeks in Love

by Laura Preble

  Carl ambles over to the door and smiles sheepishly at me. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you,” he says, laughing. “Fletcher told me what you thought of me. No hard feelings, though; I know I look like a dumb jock. Can’t help it. But anyway, I hope we can be friends.”

  Becca pats his back and says, “I’ll meet you outside, okay?” He grins at her, and shuffles out on his velvety paws. She turns to me and says, “Listen, I know this is hard for you. I’m sorry, but I promise, it won’t change anything.”

  I know my face must show the disappointment and jealousy I feel, but I try to brighten it up with a big, fake smile. “Hey, I’m happy for you,” I say, kind of telling the truth. “Who’d have guessed it was him?”

  “Well, now that I think of it, who else at school is that tall?” Becca watches as Carl runs his bunny ears into the low branches of the tree in our yard. “Sometimes what you want is right in front of you, and you just can’t see it.”

  “Especially if it’s in a bunny suit.” I give her a big hug, a real one this time, and try not to let tears spill down onto her back. I really do feel happy for her, actually; but I feel equally sad for me. She breaks away, gestures that she’ll call me later, and scampers down the porch steps.

  Jon and Amber walk arm in arm to the door too, smiling contentedly. “See you Monday,” she says. “And don’t worry about Carl—he’s actually really cool. You’ll like him. Good night.”

  Yeah, I’m sure he’s cool. But what are we going to do? Double date with three people? I figure my night can’t get much worse, but then I walk into the kitchen and Dad and Thea are sloshing down wine (which of course none of us was allowed to have), and giggling like they’re about two. “Uh, hello? Did you know your daughter just left with a football player?” I ask, a bit nastily.

  Thea comes out of her winy haze for a moment and focuses on me. “Really? Was he really a football player, or just a guy in a football player costume?”

  “No, he was a real football player in a rabbit costume, but what’s the difference?” I pick up a rag and violently start to clean the counters. I don’t look at them, but Thea silently leaves the kitchen, and I hear her grab her purse and head out the door. Dad follows her, leaving me with the messes in the kitchen and elsewhere.

  Amber runs back into the house, panting. “Where’s Elisa?”

  “Huh?”

  “She came with us. I totally forgot. Have you seen her?”

  I look around the kitchen, as if she might pop up out of a cupboard. “Well, no. Maybe she got a ride home.”

  “She wouldn’t go without telling me!” Amber darts into the living room. “Elisa!”

  Sighing heavily, I check the bathroom, the dining room, and the back patio. No sign of Elisa anywhere. “Crud,” I say aloud. Just what I need to end the perfect evening, a missing persons report. I gather up the tablecloth, dumping piles of crumbs on the floor. I keep trying to get Euphoria to consider getting one of the little robotic vacuums, just for floors. It could be like a child to her, and then maybe she’d stop obsessing about me…but anyway, I take the tablecloth and some other stuff to the laundry room.

  I switch on the light and nearly have a heart attack. Elisa is tangled on the floor, her costume all askew, her hands caressing the back of someone who looks vaguely like a pirate with a turban—

  “Hey!” I yell. They both break their vacuum lip hold and slump apart like magnets whose attraction has been sapped.

  “Oh, hey,” Elisa manages to say as she adjusts her red braids. Her makeup is all smeared, so now she looks like a cartoon character colored out of the lines. The guy she’s mauling is Naveen, Amitha’s brother.

  “So, I guess you didn’t hear that the party’s over,” I say as casually as possible. I continue to load the washer as if they are just tiny dust bunnies annoying me.

  “Uh…sorry about this,” Naveen says, adjusting his crooked turban. “It just sort of—”

  “–happened.” Elisa finishes, giggling slightly.

  “Just get going.” I twist the washer dial viciously and dump a cupful of detergent into the water. “Thanks for being part of my lovely evening.”

  Elisa gestures to Naveen to meet her outside, and she steps up next to me, her yarn hair grazing my shoulder. “Shelby, seriously, I never…we never…I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” She giggles again. “But he is cute, huh?”

  “How did you two hook up?”

  “We started talking about graphic calculators, and that was it.” She tilts her head so she can see through the doorway into the dining room. “I mean, he’s cute, smart, geeky…and he knows Linux. He’s perfect.”

  “Great.” I lean against the washer, which has started its vibrating dance of cleanliness. “Hope you two are very happy together.”

  In one of the few genuine nonjoke-filled moments she’s ever had, Elisa turns solemn eyes to me and says, “Don’t worry. You’ll find someone too.”

  How sad it is when the only girl in your group who’s never dated finally finds the perfect guy. Especially when you’re left with nothing but a noisy, cranky washer to curl up with.

  When I flip the switch in the laundry room, all I see in the house is the purplish glow of Halloween lights and some stray streamers. Everybody has left, apparently. I walk through the quiet house, as depressed as any superhero has ever been. Nice night for a good cry, I guess, so I head to the porch, where Thea and my dad are swinging and yakking like old school chums. Guess she never followed Becca after all.

  “Oh, Shelby,” Dad says. He sounds so happy that I want to strangle him. “Come on out. What happened with Elisa? She practically floated off the porch.”

  “She found true love, I guess.” I park on the steps and put my head in my hands.

  “Oh, don’t be upset,” Thea says gently. “In ten years, you won’t even remember any of this.”

  Why do adults always say stuff like that? Who cares about ten years from now? I am in pain now, and I want a solution now. They probably can’t remember the pain from high school because they’re too darn old. The memory is the first thing to go, you know.

  Dad lets loose this cavernous yawn and says, “Better get to bed. I think we’ll have a lot of cleanup to do tomorrow. Great party, though. Did you have any fun, honey?”

  “I guess.” Glancing back at them on the porch swing, I feel a white-hot stab in my gut. Could it be that even my dad is finding someone? That is a discussion for a whole different Oprah show, definitely. As Scarlett O’Hara said, I’ll think about it tomorrow. “I’m going to bed. You two don’t stay up too late.” I stretch, then amble over to Dad to give him a kiss. Thea touches my arm and I recoil without meaning to. “Night.”

  The white-hot knife thing continues, and washing my face and taking off my asparagus hair doesn’t even help. In the mirror, a green-streaked girl stares back at me, and I think she looks pathetic. I turn the knob on the shower and let the water blast away, hot as anything, and I get in to wash away all the crappy events of the evening.

  As I lay in bed later staring at the ceiling, I count the constellations of Day-Glo stars, and look for the shape of a heart, but I can’t find it. Euphoria can’t even make me feel better, even though she tries by playing all my favorite songs. I guess eventually I go to sleep, though, because the next thing I know, it’s Sunday morning, and I’ve awakened to another glorious day in lonerville.

  Now that the party is officially over (in more ways than one), I’m back to school, Queen Geeks, and GeekFest as the only things absorbing my time. Monday’s lunchtime is truly torturous; Amber and Jon, Elisa and Naveen, and Becca and Carl all hang out under our tree, and I’m left with a bag lunch and a major depression. But where else would I go?

  “So, for GeekFest, Carl is going to run the sound system,” Becca chirps as she slips a bag of chips to her new companion. “Now, we have to work on Shelby’s number so she can get Fletcher back.”

  “Don’t talk about it in front of them!” I hiss, pointing to the guys, who
all look confused.

  “Well, they are going to help us, so why not?” She turns to Naveen, and says, “Amitha is going to play the sitar with us on Shelby’s song. And we’re all dressing in saris.”

  “Should be excellent,” he answers. “Except that Amitha is a lousy sitar player. But who will really notice, huh?”

  “Do you want Fletcher back?” Carl rumbles. “I thought you broke it off with him.”

  “She didn’t exactly break it off,” Amber begins, but Becca finished, “she just didn’t keep it going.”

  “And now he’s dating that slutty Megan Lovett,” Elisa snipes. “I cannot believe he’d fall for anybody like that.”

  “I don’t think they’re dating,” Carl mumbles around a mouthful of sandwich.

  “Why?” I ask in spite of myself. Like I care if Fletcher’s dating. But I do, of course.

  “Oh, they had some fight over which car he was going to drive to some party.” He laughs as he carefully folds the crusts of his sandwich and sticks them inside a Baggie. “She didn’t like his beater mobile.”

  I’m secretly delighted.

  The next couple of weeks are consumed with rehearsal and homework, which I have let slip terribly because of my emotional trauma. At school, I studiously avoid Fletcher, but because I am avoiding him, we seem to run into each other every minute. I come around a corner on my way to math and run smack into him, literally. If it hadn’t been about me, I would have laughed at how comical we probably looked trying to pick up each others’ stuff without speaking. And then one day at lunch, he happened to come into the cafeteria just as I got into the line.

  “Hey,” I hear a girl’s voice behind me.

  “Hi,” he answers her, but it’s noncommittal. I pick up a carton of milk.

  “So, did you make a decision?” She kind of squeaks in that way that cute girls do when they’re excited. I have never known if that squeak is genuine, or just something that reveals their evolutionary link to the rodent world.

  I am desperate to look back at who it is, but I can’t, so I just pick up another carton of milk.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to do it,” he says finally, sighing.

  I can hear the pout in her voice as she says, “Oh, pooh. I was really counting on it, Fletcher.”

  By this time, I’m at the end of the line, and the lunch lady says, “You just want five cartons of milk?” I nod as if I absolutely do want five cartons of milk, pay her, and run as if my shoes are on fire.

  As I said, the only relief I have from this Fletcher itch is rehearsing for the big show. We practice at my house, and Euphoria cannot get the dance steps right no matter what we do.

  “I am trying!” she whines desperately as she clunks her rollers in time to the karaoke CD.

  “Stop, stop!” I yell, pulling the tapestried turban off my head. “This is so stupid. Why are we doing this?”

  “We want a juice bar?” Elisa croaks.

  “You want your boyfriend back?” Amber asks.

  Amitha strums the sitar and sings, “Because music is the language of love!”

  I’ve slumped onto the couch, my blue-gold sari hunched up above my knees. “I don’t see the point. He will never be interested again, and I don’t blame him. I am a mess.”

  “You are a mess,” Becca says, nodding, “but we still love you. I bet he does too.”

  Amitha, Caroline, Claudette, and Elisa grab me by the arms and drag me back to my place in front of the New Delhi chorus line. I hear the words of the song ringing through my hallway: Well, how can I forget you, boy? When there is always something there to remind me.

  “Okay, now sway with your arms above your head, like this, one foot propped on your calf.” Amitha shows us this exotic move, and I try and mimic it, but instead of looking like a graceful temple dancer, I think I probably look like an epileptic flamingo with one good leg.

  The night of GeekFest finally arrives and we’re at the theater all afternoon, Carl fiddling with the sound, Jon trying to get the lights to work, Naveen following Elisa around like a sick puppy dog. There’s so much love in the room I feel as if I might puke. Seriously.

  We rehearse the acts one by one, and each one is pretty good, actually. Caroline and Claudette do a really amazing rap set to classical music and hip hop beats, and then Amitha comes out and plays a solo on her sitar. I think she plays really well, and I think Naveen is just jealous. Of course, he’s not even watching the show anyway. He’s too obsessed with Elisa and her Palm Pilot, so they sit huddled in a dark corner, sharing coefficients or something.

  Another girl does a comedy routine, and it does make me laugh a little, even though I’m in a rotten mood. Then we have the four-piece orchestra girls who play a medley of Star Wars music with a disco beat behind them. Pretty cool. We have an original art movie about the secret lives of coffeemakers, and then Amber gets up to do her poetry about office supplies. Elisa’s dramatic reading of “She Blinded Me with Science” is pretty hysterical to everyone except Naveen, who watches lovingly from the front row.

  When it’s my turn to go, I suddenly get the chills and feel nausea coming on. “I don’t think I can do this,” I whisper to Becca. “If I can’t even do it in front of you guys, how am I going to be able to do it in front of an audience?”

  The girls in their brightly colored saris are lined up like tapestry bowling pins on the stage, their bejeweled turbans glowing under the lights. I trudge up the steps to the stage as if I’m going to a hanging, and Becca plops a turban on my head, covering my eyes. Maybe it would be easier to do if I couldn’t see anything, after all….

  “Here’s your mic, Shelby,” Amitha says, curling my reluctant fingers around the instrument of embarrassment. “Now, just hold it up about an inch away from your lips.”

  I adjust the turban so I can squint into the incredibly bright lights. Not so bad. I can’t see anything. The music starts, and Amitha starts jamming on her sitar, and the girls behind me do their little dance. Just as I’m getting ready to sing, my dad throws open the doors to the theater and yells, “We’re here!”

  He has Euphoria strapped to an equipment dolly with multicolored bungee cords, and she’s beeping and whirring her indignant protest. He muscles her up the wheelchair ramp and onto the stage, where the girls descend upon her, decorating her like the mice did the ball gown in Cinderella.

  “I’ve never had such a rough ride in my life,” she sputters, tiny sparks flashing underneath her wheels. “Your father cannot drive a motor vehicle. I just thought you should know.”

  “I got you here,” Dad yells back. “And you’re welcome.”

  “Let’s start over,” Becca suggests. The tape cues again, and my whole chorus line of living and nonliving backup chicks is in place.

  “I walk along the city streets you used to walk—” I am barely audible, which is just the way I like it.

  “Turn her up!” Becca screams. She looks like a vengeful Indian goddess in her purple and blue skirt and matching turban, with her little blond spikes sticking out. Nobody will argue with her, which is too bad, because I know this would be better for everyone if no one could hear me.

  Now the mic is turned up so high I can hear my own breathing, and when I clear my throat, it’s like somebody set off a blasting cap in a coal mine. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” I moan.

  “Oh, c’mon, Shelby,” Euphoria says, putting a claw on my shoulder. “Don’t mess up my only opportunity for superstardom! I never get out of the house!”

  “Is that somebody in a robot suit?” one of the newer girls asks hesitantly.

  “Yeah,” I nod. “She has a skin condition. Doesn’t like to be seen.”

  “It’s almost six,” Carl yells from the booth at the back of the theater. “Doors open at seven, so you should all stop and get something to eat.”

  Everybody whips off their saris (which are Velcroed…something I’m not sure Krishna would approve of), and leaves them in an untidy pile on the side o
f the stage. There’s a stampede for the door, where Dad has wheeled in several large pizzas and Thea has towed in a cooler of soft drinks.

  Sitting in the alcove eating feels like preparing for a battle. It’s my last meal, and I may never eat again. The taste of pizza in my mouth, the gooey cheese, the garlic—

  “Hello?” Becca knocks on my head. “What’s with the doomsday face?”

  “This is just such a lame idea,” I begin, but she interrupts.

  “You want Fletcher. He wants you. What’s the big problem?”

  I wipe some stray cheese from my fingers and wonder: What is the problem? “I guess I just feel like…it will never work out.”

  “Because you don’t deserve it?” Becca whispers in my ear. “It’s a gift. You can’t earn it or deserve it. It’s that simple, really.”

  She’s gone from global domination to philosophy in sixty seconds, and my head is spinning. “Remember Alice,” she says as she stands and wipes pizza crumbs from her leggings. “She went down the rabbit hole and through those tiny doors without knowing what was on the other side. You can’t ever know what’s on the other side. Not really. So, your decision is: Do I stay or do I go?”

  I must sit there for quite a while thinking about this question, because when I look up, it’s only a few minutes before they open the doors at seven.

  “I guess they really want a juice bar,” Amitha comments as she peers through a window at the large line of people waiting to get in. “Let’s get backstage!”

  As we all file into the backstage area, I come to a startling realization: Fletcher probably won’t even come to this thing. Why should he? I never invited him. I was about to make a total fool of myself and the reason for my foolishness wasn’t even going to be there! I must look horrible, because suddenly Elisa and Amber are on either side of me, holding my arms.

  “Are you okay?” Amber asks. “I thought you were going to faint.”

  “Fine, fine,” I mutter, grabbing the handrail.

  The theater isn’t completely full, but there are at least two-hundred people there, mostly kids or parents. Not too bad. I watch the other acts backstage, listen to the applause, which is mostly genuine (except for when Elisa did her interpretive dance…that applause was definitely polite. And confused). I can’t help but scan the rows in front to see if he’s there…but he’s not. I don’t see him at all. Why should he be here? It’s almost time for me to go on, and I feel like throwing up.